Recent content by dacap06

Fuel Efficiency I can confirm Tiltrider's estimates are spot on. I have an '89 Jefferson 42 Sundeck. It has a semiplaning hull with LOD of 42 ft, LOA of 45 ft, LaW of 37.7 ft, beam of 14' 3", draft of 3' 10" and weight of 30,000 lb. Power comes from twin Cat turbo 3208's making 260 HP each...

A Different Approach Think about this: Get the dehumidifier you want based on size, capacity, price, and mounting ideas. Pay no attention to whether or not it has a tank. If it has a tank but you ewnt it to drain continuously, Look for the appropriate through-wall adapter for the kind of...

Sadly, we can't say that about the next few years at all. These two factors are, as mathematicians and statisticians will tell you, statistically independent. What that means is that events in one year will have no effect on events in succeeding years. Oh, if only it weren't so!

I can speak to slips in the mid Chesapeake Bay, as that is what I know best. There's no such thing as a standard slip width. Wider slips tend to be longer, fewer, and more expensive to rent for a week or a month. Length and width don't seem to make much price difference tor transients renting...

A Cheapskate's Answer I just found your question in my Trawler Forum digest. What fun! I read through the answers but did not see my preferred combination, so here's my answer really late. From one cheapskate to another: My answer is: none of the above. The details and justification are...

Rope manufacturers have lots to say on this subject. They are all pretty conservative about what you can do to clean without weakening your rope. For the first few years, they advise a simple soak in water for a few hours, and then rinse because the individual fibers of your line still have...

Yes, DaWife and I are on our 3rd motorhome, have been using them for 12 years. For navigation, we use a Rand McNally 7" GPS and it works fine for my 66 year old eyes. Depending on where you place it, I fear an 11" tablet will interfere with your view of the road. I drive a 35' class A, and use...

I bought a bucket of 5/16" G4 anchor chain from Defender on my boat. It weighs 100 lb for 90 feet. Therefore your 200 feet of 3/16" G4 will weigh about 220 lb. I also bought a 100 lb Defender bucket of 3/8" anchor chain for another purpose. It has 60 ft. Therefore, your 200 feet will...

I tend to be suspicious of people who make recommendations and won't tell you why. It makes me think either (1) they are hiding something (for instance, does Miami Cordage carry 5/16" G4 chain?), or else they're passing on hearsay and don't really know the answer but are too embarrassed to...

Land Barge

f Answers to this question over the years are all over the place. Being an engineer, I am a firm proponent of "try it and see" over a long trip. If you have modern engine control electronics, you can just read your fuel flow for a given speed. In this case, I'd build a table of fuel flow vs...

Transome Etiquette I quickly scanned the responses to OP's question and was surprised no one cited the USCG definition of a motor vessel (hope I didn't miss it). According to CFR 24.10-1: Motor vessel means any vessel more than 65 feet in length, which is propelled by machinery other than...

Works fine. I have navigated the Chesapeake bay for 8 years using Navionics on a Google Nexus 10 tablet and later a Google Nexus 9 tablet, running in parallel with a Garmin Oregon Handheld navigation device for comparison, and later a fixed chart plotter already installed on my new-to-me boat...

Jeff, I couldn't tell you about the lead sausages, I'm the wrong kind of engineer. But I do see a cheap way to test whether the added weight will make your boat sit too low in the water. Put 5 gal buckets of water on your decks to see. A gallon of water weighs 8.34 lb, so you would need 47...

Cleat hitch around horn cleats Clove hitch or rolling magnus, depending on what I feel like the strain is going to be Reefing / Square knot Bowline / sheet bend Round turn and two half hitches, or sometimes round turn and a jamming hitch